Plan campus visits and course selections in February

When you’re looking at the college admissions timeline, February is all about planning ahead. There are two key items that need to be addressed in February:

Campus visits: February is when families need to get serious about which colleges they plan on visiting over spring break.

Some college tours fill up, and families are often left without campus visit options. So take a look at the current college list, cluster the colleges by geography and then determine which are critical to visit in the short term. Now is the time to figure out if you want to head north, south, east or west and how you will travel in between college destinations.

Once you’ve made your decisions, go on each of the college websites and plan your visits. There is usually a “visit our college” tab under Admissions.

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If your student is a junior and you haven’t had the opportunity to visit colleges, spring break is your best bet. This summer students will be be finalizing their college lists and working on their college applications and essays.

Visiting over the summer isn’t bad, but it can often be challenging for high school students and parents to really imagine what the college would look like when it is full of students or what the spirit of the campus is like on a pregame day. That said, if summer is the only realistic option, it is far better to visit then than not at all.

Course selection: Now is also the time for families with rising ninth-, 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders to evaluate course selections for next year. Students looking at the most selective colleges and universities need to understand the number of courses needed at each of the colleges on their lists.

There are important distinctions between what is recommended and what is required.

As an example, the University of South Carolina-Columbia requires the following units: English, 4; Math, 4; Social Studies/History, 3; Foreign Language, 2 ; Visual/performing arts, 1 and Science, 3. It is important to note that USC requires three lab sciences – and Earth and Environmental or Earth Science is not considered a lab.

This means that students need to take Biology and Chemistry and also take either Physics or a higher level science where Biology/Chemistry or Physics is a prerequisite. The requirements for art and the three lab sciences are a bit unusual. Since this information is published on the website and in college guidebooks, students who haven’t had an art class or the three lab sciences and intend to apply to USC will need to plan their courses accordingly in order to keep it an option.